The founding law of the Higher Agricultural School of Athens-HASA (1920) provided, among other things, for a regular Chair of General and Special Animal Science (Professor Ioannis Dimakopoulos 1921-1965), which according to the French and German academic standards of that era, also included Mendelian Genetics, Dairying and Aromatology in the teaching and research work. The latter corresponded to the Animal Nutrition course, and derived its title from the fact that the main subject of the teaching material was the description and properties of animal feed.
Since 1950, the separation of studies at HASA in “Specialties”, one of which was that of Animal Science, the possibility of access to foreign literature and the rapid development of systematic poultry farming followed by the establishment of compound feed industries, created the need for serious changes in the teaching of the Animal Nutrition course, which included in the curriculum the dietary importance and evaluation of proteins, vitamins and minerals and many other topics.
The conditions of the time necessitated the separation of Nutrition from Animal Husbandry and the establishment of an independent regular Department and Laboratory of Animal Nutrition (1964). The filling of this Chair (Professor Periklis Kalaisakis 1965-1986) was followed by a complete reformation of the teaching material which was divided into 3 major areas, Physiology of Nutrition, Aromatology and Applied Nutrition of productive animals.
The rapid development and work of the Laboratory was facilitated by its installation (1980) in the newly built “I. DIMAKOPOULOS” building. The main research project of the Laboratory, until then, was the study of domestically sourced animal feed, the study of the fermentability of protein in the ruminants’ stomachs and the fattening of dairy-type lamb hybrids, while a first attempt was made to prepare tables for the chemical composition and the nutritional value of the animal feed used in our country.
Subsequently, with the supply of modern analytical devices (Professor George Papadopoulos, 1986-1999) such as atomic absorption and fluorescence spectrophotometers, gas chromatographs (GC), amino acid analyzer, Elisa photometer, near infrared spectrophotometry (NIRS ), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) etc., the research activity of the Laboratory extended to the deeper study of fermentation phenomena within the ruminants’ stomachs, to the determination of the bioavailability of various inorganic elements and salts in ruminants and omnivores, to the study of the effects of various additives (vitamins, trace elements, growth factors, enzymes, fatty acids, amino acids, etc.) on the metabolism, productivity and reproductive capacity of animals, the immune system, the exploitation of the ration and the quality of livestock products . Finally, with the creation and organization of a computer room, which has 18 modern PCs with a suitable software for diet formulation, students are given the opportunity to train in the preparation and investigation of balanced and economic diets for all types of animals using the linear programming method .
